Under Feed the Future, the U.S. Government continues to keep global food security at the forefront of international policy discussions and harness the global momentum directed at ending global hunger and poverty in this lifetime.
The New Alliance builds upon the Grow Africa Partnership, an effort led by the African Union, the New Partnership for African Development and the World Economic Forum. It is a partnership platform that facilitates mutual commitments among 1) leading African countries to make policy reforms that incentivize sustainable private sector investment in agriculture, 2) development partners, to align funding with African food security plans and priorities, 3) international and African companies, to invest in smallholder African agriculture, and 4) civil society organizations, to contribute and help monitor the efforts of all partners. The commitments of all parties are memorialized in 10 Country Cooperation Frameworks. The Grow Africa Partnership provides technical support to help build effective partnerships between African governments and the private sector and supports the New Alliance by monitoring investment commitments in each country’s Cooperation Framework.
The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition has enabled reforms from:
10 $7
from more than
AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS
BILLION IN COMMITMENTS
The governments working through the New Alliance have committed to significant market-oriented policy reforms. For example, the clarification of land rights and land titling processes is an important issue for a number of New Alliance countries and potential investors. In Burkina Faso, the government has committed to improving local-level land titling by basing it on customary land rights, and training the courts to help implement these reforms more effectively.
160 global and local companies
New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition and the Grow Africa Partnership
Because most of the world’s very poor people rely directly on agriculture for their livelihoods, investments to boost incomes from that sector, especially those of women and smallholder farmers, can be highly effective in reducing poverty. Research has shown that agriculture sector growth is, on average, at least twice as effective at reducing poverty as growth in other sectors.
RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT THROUGH THE NEW ALLIANCE Promoting responsible investment is a core New Alliance commitment—not only incorporating measures to ensure investments “do no harm,” but also action to maximize the positive impact of investments on women, smallholder farmers and families’ nutritional status.
Out of the 2009 L’Aquila process, development partners committed more than $22 billion in public resources to fight food insecurity. But agriculture sector investment needs are too great to be met by the public sector alone. Recognizing this, President Obama, African leaders and other members of the G-8 launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in 2012 to significantly expand private sector investment and public-private partnerships for smallholder agricultural development to reduce poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Feed the Future is the United States’ contribution to this global partnership.
Each New Alliance Country Cooperation Framework includes a commitment to support the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, and the pilot use of the Principles of Responsible A g r i c u l t u r a l I nve s t m e n t . M a ny C o o p e r a t i o n Frameworks also include specific policy measures to strengthen land tenure and rights.
Just two years later, the New Alliance has grown to 10 African countries, more than 160 companies, and more than $7 billion in planned investments, $970 million of which were implemented in 2013. Through the New Alliance and Grow Africa partnerships, more than 2.6 million smallholders have already been reached through services, training, sourcing or production contracts.8
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Grow Africa Annual Report, May 2014. Figures were reported by companies to Grow Africa.
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